


The Fall

by LazyAdmiral



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-20
Updated: 2017-05-20
Packaged: 2018-11-02 23:49:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10955292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LazyAdmiral/pseuds/LazyAdmiral
Summary: “Make them fear you like a wolf at their heels,” she told him. He did not need to ask who.~My take on the Fall of Arlathan. Spoilers for DAI/Descent/Trespasser.





	The Fall

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by me falling down the rabbit hole of theories about the game and its religions and history and *everything*, as well as the events that led to the Fall of Arlathan. I warn you now, this was written in about half an hour in a style I'm not completely used to and has had next to no editing, but I couldn't bring myself to sit on it any longer. So I hope you enjoy it, and I'd love to know what you think!

The war against a common enemy had quickly become a war amongst themselves.

He had watched at his mistress’s side as she willed the great creatures beneath the earth to slumber, and they did. He had watched as, faced with no opposition, their leaders grew greedy for the rich lyrium now slumbering in the titans’ veins. And he had watched as it poisoned them all.

His mistress remained unstained by the taint her peers’ greed had brought on the land. Strong, resilient, and just she stood and it only added to the reasons he admired her so. Under her gaze, he never felt like a servant despite the brands on his skin – when he spoke, she called him wise, a reminder of what he was when she found him.

She came to him late one evening, fair face pinched and tight. Magic sang on her fingers as she lifted her mark from his skin.

“Make them fear you like a wolf at their heels,” she told him. He did not need to ask who.

It was all too easy, in some ways. As their gods turned corrupted and cruel, his promise to free the ones they treated most viciously was met with only the briefest hesitation. Many faithful remained, but his army of unshackled brethren grew. And as the gods struggled to fight against each other and the awful sickness within themselves, he planned.

His mistress – nay, his friend called to him again.

“They are dying,” she said. “Their weakened flesh turns on them.”

“Let it,” he had replied, but she shook her head.

“They have made much of this world, and their power fuels it, even now. To destroy them would be to destroy everything we have,” she warned.

His gaze had wandered then as he thought on her words. Grand sculptures decorated the walls, gifts to honour the goddess in her most recognised form, a figure of justice and retribution. And as his eyes were drawn to the powerful wings, a nod to her _other_ form, the answer came to him.

It was so simple.

Of all the creatures the gods’ might had created, only those winged beasts of fire and strength had taken his trusted friend’s eye. And like her, they had resisted the shadow covering the land when all others fell victim to it.

The plan was dangerous and would place her most at risk. She had better access to the others, he explained, and even in their maddened state, they would trust her far more than they ever would him. It stood to reason, she agreed, that while their bodies may be beyond saving, there may yet be some portion of their spirit that might be spared.

She looked to him then, asking what he intended to do about the rest of the sickness? It had spread far beyond the temples, beyond the lands each god claimed as their own.

This he did not tell her and asked only that she trusted him and brought the others to the gilded city as he asked.

She agreed.

-

They murdered her.

Even as he raged and wept and cursed their worthless lives, he cursed himself more. He had not accounted for the gods to suspect his plans, had assumed if he spoke none of it to her then she might not fall prey to their treachery.

It was the first time he had known himself to be wrong. Sadly, it would not be the last.

His sources told him that beyond that bloody betrayal, the plan had worked as expected. Safeguarded within the souls of the seven beasts chosen, a shard of each of the gods remained, preserved for when it might be cleansed of its corruption. They came to him now, their mistress’s ill-placed faith in him drawing them to his summons.

He cast them across the land, buried deep in the dark, and bade them sleep until he called them.

The barrier he’d devised would be able to contain the sickness while sparing those parts of the land that were unscathed. It was a monumental task, and a complex one, and he poured himself into it, working day and night until it consumed him and even his grief became a memory.

It would work, he told himself as weariness pulled at his bones and his mind ached with possibilities, calculations, and theories. It had to work.

And it did, but not in the way he had hoped.

He stood atop of the world he had remade, horrified by the destruction his hand and pride had wrought. The sickness had been banished, as well as those who carried it; but so too had been the world he had known, the living magic that breathed in every stone, every plant, every living creature. He could feel it like a wound, a deadening of the light that he had known his entire existence.

He could not fix this.

He thought of the beasts, safe and slumbering in the cold earth. He thought of his friend, his companion, his confidante, and the sacrifice she had made on his behalf. He thought of a quiet spirit, too thoughtful and curious and _proud_ to resist the lure of a strange, new world and all it might become.

Time, he realised, was his only hope. In time, he could devise a plan; in time, he may find a cure for this blight or the opportunity for it; in time, he could undo the damage he had done.

And as he wandered the Fade in undying dreams, Solas watched, and he waited, and he prepared.


End file.
